


Song of Ice

by seawards



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Biting, Challenge Response, F/M, Fingerfucking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-01
Updated: 2010-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-06 22:33:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seawards/pseuds/seawards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It could have been a perfectly pleasant summer morning but the voices in his head would not stop bickering.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Song of Ice

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Porn Battle IX and originally posted [there](http://oxoniensis.dreamwidth.org/26521.html?thread=3221913&style=mine#cmt3221913). The prompt was "Irvine/Shiva, dare."  
> Beware: My idea of Shiva has been forever changed by her FFX incarnation, which is all too apparent in this. Also, I'm pretty sure I stole the bracelet from FFVII.
> 
> Thank you, Gnommi, for the speedy proofreading.

The forest floor was springy under his feet and birdsong echoed in the branches above. It could have been a perfectly pleasant summer morning but the voices in his head would not stop bickering.

"Ladies," Irvine tried to interject for what must have been the tenth time, only to be roundly ignored some more.

"I can't understand why you would judge him so," Siren was saying, her voice touched by a mere trace of her usual honeyed lilt. "We all must take our pleasures where we may, and he could certainly do much worse."

"It is uncouth," answered Shiva. "He is a being so ancient, so powerful, so beyond taking his pleasures in someone so ... fleeting as a human girl. No offence meant, Irvine."

Irvine waved her off. It probably made him look a little crazy, seeing as how he was taking this leisurely walk through the woods all by himself -- but then again, there was no-one around to judge. He came upon a little clearing ringed by young birch trees. There were sunspots dancing over the fresh grass, which came up nearly to his knees, and there was a sweet, earthy scent in the air. Irvine sighed contentedly as he lowered himself to the ground, resting his head against the stump of a fallen tree.

He'd missed some of the ongoing argument and was the happier for it; he'd already learned more than he probably needed to know about Ifrit, and he'd _definitely_ learned more than he ever wanted to know about Rinoa.

"... high and mighty," Siren was saying. "But you know how it is! You spend some time in a human's head, hearing their every thought, seeing their every fantasy," -- a little detail Irvine was privately sure he'd never get used to, despite public protestations to the contrary -- "you can't help but grow a little fond of them. You know how it is! I can tell you're getting fond of this one, too."

There was a small pause so frosty Irvine thought he could feel ice flowers blossom on the inside of his skull. "I most certainly do not know how it is, nor shall I," Shiva finally said.

Irvine found himself hoping that might be the end of it, but then Siren began to laugh. "You mean to tell me, dearest, that you have no experience whatsoever with the thing you so vocally condemn?"

"I need none!" came the reply. "I know that there can be no pleasure in it for the likes of us -- how could there be when their minds are so limited, when they are so trapped in the physical world? And what, for that matter, could they gain from it that they might not more easily find with their own kind?"

"Oh, sister," said Siren, and there was still laughter in her voice, but something else, too. The something else worried Irvine, who had carried Siren for long weeks now and knew her well. "Is that what you believe, even after finding Squall a kindred soul? Don't interrupt, you know I speak the truth; even now you pine for the feeling of his mind, the cool surface of it and the power underneath, so like you. And are you not learning to cherish ..." and there was a tugging, a tightening that started at the base of Irvine's skull and spread along his nerves, into the tips of his fingers, his toes, "... the intricacies of _this_ mind, its quickness and its pride? You name their physicality a flaw, but does it not intrigue you to know that their bodies and their minds are so very tightly bound?"

Irvine's stomach did a flip at roughly the same time that he realised his dick was swelling, pressing against the inside of his trousers. A shiver crept up his back. He hadn't known Siren could do this, and worse: he didn't know how to make her stop.

"But I really don't think that you want me to stop," she said, barely a whisper and more intimate than one. "Summon Shiva, Irvine."

Shiva was a cool, bright presence in his mind. He groped for her blindly, as he had done many times before, but she eluded him easily. "I think not," she said. "Stop this at once."

Irvine wasn't sure to whom she was talking, Siren or himself, but he complied, and Siren said, "So you choose to remain ignorant, happy to judge others for things you know nothing about? Or are you afraid? Is it that you fear you might lose your composure, ice queen?"

"I fear nothing of the sort," Shiva replied. "I only think it is a waste of time for all involved, when there is nothing to gain for either party."

"Well, if that is all that holds you back, won't you indulge me?" Siren said, her smile audible and taut as a harp string. "I'd much rather we were on even ground when we continue our discussion of Ifrit's transgressions. Unless, of course, there is another reason you'd refuse."

"It is nothing to me," Shiva replied. There was a note of desperate resolution in her voice. "Summon me, Irvine."

"Don't I get a say in this?" Irvine said, but the brightness of Shiva was pressing up against the surface of his mind now, up and up, flooding his vision with cool white light, and Irvine could do nothing but open himself to it.

He had seen Shiva summoned many times but he watched with a new clarity this time, felt the chill of the blizzard cutting through his cotton shirt. Ice burst and he scrambled back from where the shards were falling, snowflakes settling on blades of fresh green grass all around him. Through the mist of pulverised ice he could make out her tall silhouette.

"Irvine," she said when the mist had cleared, inclining her head in greeting. Her braids slipped down her shoulder, beads and bells cascading in a symphony of bright noise.

Irvine pushed himself up on his elbows, but made it no further than that. He really didn't know how to deal with any of this; he'd never even encountered a GF outside of a fight. Were you supposed to make light conversation? He cast about for help from Siren, but there was nothing there but a golden shimmer, a vague sense of amusement. She had settled down in his mind, waiting to see what would happen.

There was an expression on Shiva's face not unlike the concentration of battle, but with an added pinch of her eyebrows that he could read as nothing short of stubborn determination. She crossed the clearing with five quick steps and came to a halt above him, feet bracketing his ankles. "Do you consent?" she asked, and for an endless, vertiginous moment he could not say a thing, just stare: the blue expanse of her skin, glowing as though lit from within; the swell of her hips, limned with frost; the dip of her collarbone, the long line of her throat. He met her eyes.

"Do you consent to consort with me, Irvine?" she said again, a little impatient. He could feel the cold radiating from her bare feet through the thin material of his trousers. There was nothing for it.

"Yes," he said.

She sank down to her knees and into his lap the moment he said it. He pushed up to meet her face to face and _blessed Bahamut_ but even through his clothes she was the coldest thing he had ever touched, colder than snow on bare hands. It wasn't pleasant, despite the warmth of the day. Within moments, he was shivering violently.

"Wait," he ground out, "hang on a moment."

He grasped her hips and she let him lift her off his lap while he reached for his satchel. He was reminded for an insane second of a hunt for condoms, but of course those weren't necessary -- he thought; he hoped; he didn't have the heart to ask -- then his fingers closed around curved metal. He drew it out triumphantly and slid it over his left hand. It rested snug and cool against his wrist.

Her gaze dropped to his hand and her fingers followed, tracing the intricately wrought silver and the single opal set in it. Her nails were long and very sharp, a little curved -- a lot like claws.

"An Aurora bracelet," she said, something in her voice that might have been a smile. It didn't show on her face. "There aren't many of these left in the world."

"Forgot I had it on me. Won it off someone a couple of years back," he said, breathless. Her fingers had slipped past the edges of the bracelet and onto his skin, still cool where they touched him but no longer painful. A small cut on his forearm knit itself shut as her fingers skimmed over it. "Complete stroke of luck, I gotta admit, she had a horrible hand and no idea how to cover for it. Of course she wouldn't have had much of a chance either way because when it comes to Triad I'm pretty much unbeatable, but I don't think the chick really knew how much the bracelet was worth because no-one in their right mind would bid anything this rare if they weren't sure to win, am I right?"

He had to breathe and, looking up, caught her gaze. Her eyes were almost human among all the alienness of her: a stormy, opaque blue grey.

"I hadn't realised," she said, ignoring his monologue, "that I might cause you pain without intending to. I am sorry."

"No worries, no worries," he said. "It's all good. I'm good. You're good. This feels good."

Shiva's hand slid up his arm, raising goosebumps in its wake. "Lie back down," she said.

It was like closing his eyes in the face of an avalanche. He did it anyway, felt her shift above him before she straddled him again. But the slicing pain of it was gone, her weight settled across his thighs nothing more than a promise of pleasure. His hand came up to hold onto the curve of her leg. Now that it didn't hurt so much he could appreciate the softness of her skin, how it was firm and cool and not at all like ice. The tightening feeling of before began to build again, a stirring of heat low in his belly. His hips moved up involuntarily, but she rode out the movement with ease, barely allowing any friction.

She bent low over him, so low her braids were falling all around them, blocking the sunlight. Her breath was on his lips when she spoke, numbing them slightly.

"How do you do this when there is no meeting of the minds?" she whispered. "When I am out here, I do not know your thoughts, I cannot know your desires; when I am in your head, you cannot feel my touch." She slid upwards, her hips describing a slow circle as she went, and Irvine hissed as she brushed against him.

"Well, we're simple creatures," he ground out. "Almost anything will please us."

He thought he heard a snort of laughter, a reminder that Siren was still watching, amusing herself. Shiva's face was still as the surface of a frozen lake.

"Look," he tried, sliding his hand up the side of her leg until his fingers encountered the corded cloth curving around her hips. He slid the tips of his fingers under them, stroking the skin. "You can feel that, right? The physical sensation? And it's pleasant."

Shiva laughed at that, a puff of cold breath against his cheek. "I have inhabited this body far longer than you have inhabited yours, and I do not need to be taught the pleasures of it."

She undid a clasp hidden under the fall of fabric covering her hip, lifting off Irvine slightly to remove the entire garment. Naked, she lowered herself back onto his lap. There was a curl of cobalt hair at the juncture of her legs, vibrant against the dusty brown leather of his trousers. His hand slipped to touch it, fingers twisting into the curl. The hair was coarse, its texture as familiar as the colour was strange. There were ice crystals scattered through it. He pushed his fingers further, parting hair and flesh to slide two exploratory fingertips between their bodies. She canted her hips forward to increase the pressure, trapping his hand. "No," she continued, "what puzzles me is how you make those pleasures known to someone else. How can you tell if your partner is pleased?"

"I think we mostly -- make noises," he said. "And talk, we also tal--"

Her mouth was on his, swallowing any further sound he might have made. Her lips were cool like the rest of her, and the inside of her mouth was colder still; colder the further you got inside her, a human body in reverse. Her tongue darted between his lips as her hips took up their circular movement again.

His other hand came up to cup the full curve of her breast. There were ice crystals there, too, and she sighed as they grew slick under the remaining warmth of his fingers. They reformed quickly in the wake of Irvine's hand, one pebbled nipple frosting over as he watched.

There were sharp nails grazing the skin of his belly, a hand that undid the fastening of his trousers and slipped under his waistband; fingers carding through the wiry hair there before they found and curled around his pulsing cock. He'd expected the cold to come as more of a shock, but it was almost pleasant, sinking into his heated skin through the magic of the bracelet. She circled him firmly and stroked up and down, once, twice; then, without slackening her grip or dropping the rhythm, she bent back over him, pushed his head firmly to the side with her free hand, and bit down hard on the juncture of his shoulder and his neck.

Irvine's vision went white for a moment as he arched into it, bright burn of pain shooting down his spine, making his toes curl. His cock jumped in her hand as she ran her tongue over the bite, gently now. He could feel her teeth against his skin as her lips curled into what he could only hope was a smile.

"I suppose it helps to have spent time in your thoughts," she murmured. He would have blanched at the realisation -- of course, she had seen the entire inside of his mind, she'd know where to touch and where to bite and which buttons to push -- but she had bitten down again, less severely this time, and his brain shorted out.

He pushed her onto her back with a groan while she held on, hands coming up to cup the base of his skull. He found her slick when he slid two fingers into her, hooked them to press against the textured skin there. She was so human in some ways, the creases and curves of her body so familiar, but the constant sting of that cruel cold -- not a cold of dead things but a thing of power, shining with entirely inhuman life -- shattered the illusion over and over.

Irvine managed a rhythm, a brush of his thumb over her clit in counterpoint to the long strokes of his fingers inside her. Shiva's mouth fell open against the side of his face and he caught it with his, swallowed her sighs and let his tongue mimic the deep, slow thrusts of his hand. At some point, somehow, she pushed a leg in between his, pressing hard against his straining erection, and he rubbed off against it, desperate for friction. When she went rigid against him, a moan trapped somewhere between her chest and her throat, his own orgasm took him and he was helpless to resist. His trousers weren't even undone all the way, and now they were ruined, and this had not been the plan, he was fairly sure. He felt pretty damned glorious despite.

It took him a few moments to come back to himself, and by the time he did, she was regarding him evenly. It occurred to him that he was lying on a sunlit meadow in the middle of he didn't even know where, he was touching noses with a GF whose facial expression was once more unreadable, and he still had two fingers wedged tightly inside her. The etiquette questions from before were returning tenfold. Was this a time for pillow talk?

"So I thought that was pretty nice," he said. Shiva pulled away from him and sat up, gathering up the scraps of fabric that passed for her clothes.

"Well, thank you," she said. "If you would be so kind as to dismiss me now?"

And okay, Irvine was a master of post-coital brush-offs, but this seemed a little extreme. Still, there was little he could do but comply, so he opened his mind to her. She stepped into it without hesitation and for a moment everything was very quiet. Irvine took a deep breath and focused his attention inwards. He could feel her there, icy bright and contented as a cat, curled into the space she'd carved out for herself. There was a tickling sensation at the nape of his neck, like the gentlest touch of fingernails or sharpened claws.

Irvine let his head fall back and gave himself over to the afterglow.


End file.
